Outsmart Your Smartphone: Conscious Tech Habits for Finding Happiness, Balance, and Connection IRL

by Tchiki Davis PhD, Melanie Greenberg PhD (Foreword by)

Overview

Do you have "smartphone syndrome?" This refreshingly honest how-to guide will help you find balance and build meaningful connections in a screen-obsessed world.

Do you spend hours every day on your smartphone or tablet? Reading the news, shopping for clothes, checking your email, and catching up on social media? Do you scroll through blog articles and text with your friends while waiting in line at the DMV or the grocery store, avoiding any chance interactions with actual human beings? If so, you aren’t alone. Most of us are stuck on a hedonic treadmill of push-button notifications, friend updates, and text messages. But the real question is—are we happy? And, if not, how can we increase our happiness in the age of tech?

Outsmart Your Smartphone is not a book about the evils of technology—it’s a road map for achieving happiness using all the tools available to you, including your phone. With this smart and irreverent guide, you’ll find seven steps to help you use technology in ways that increase your well-being, and find tips and tricks for overcoming the obstacles that technology creates. You’ll also learn to:

• Reconnect with your values, including kindness and gratitude
• Find your purpose in life—and then live it
• Use technology to do good things in the world
• Be fully present in each moment using mindfulness

 

Our technology crazed, social media-obsessed world does nothing if not make us more self-focused. This book will help you harness the power of that focus and magnify your happiness, for yourself and the greater good. You don’t even have to throw out your phone!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684033492
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	11/01/2019
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Tchiki Davis, PhD, is a technology consultant, writer of the blog Click Here for Happiness for Psychology Today, and cocreator of online programs that have helped more than a million people worldwide find balance and joy.

Melanie Greenberg, PhD, is a practicing psychologist, author, speaker, and coach in San Diego and throughout California; an expert on managing stress, health, and relationships using proven techniques from neuroscience, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT); and author of The Stress-Proof Brain. With more than twenty years of experience as a professor, writer, researcher, clinician, and coach, She has delivered workshops and talks to national and international audiences.

Greenberg writes the Mindful Self-Express blog for Psychology Today, and is a popular media expert who has been quoted on CNN, Forbes, BBC Radio, ABC News, Yahoo! Shine, and Lifehacker; as well as in Self, Redbook, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Fitness, Woman’s Day, Cosmopolitan, and HuffPost. She has also appeared on radio shows like Leading with Emotional Intelligence, The Best People We Know, Inner Healers, and Winning Life Through Pain. Greenberg was named one of the thirty most prominent psychologists to follow on Twitter.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Introduction 1

The Problem: Smartphone Syndrome 17

Step 1 Build Foundational Skills 33

Step 2 Stay Present 47

Step 3 Make Meaningful Connections 65

Step 4 Manage Your Emotions 81

Step 5 Practice Kindness 107

Step 6 Be True to Yourself 125

Step 7 Beat the Hedonic Treadmill 141

Conclusion: The Future of Happiness 161

References 175

Interviews

Davis resides in Berkeley, CA (The Greater San Francisco Bay Area).

Editorial Reviews

What if technology could support, rather than undermine, our health and well-being? In this well-researched, honest, and accessible guide, Tchiki Davis pulls together the best evidence from the field of positive psychology about the real drivers of human happiness—living with purpose, kindness to others, meaningful social connection—and shares simple actions you can take today to take back your attention, live with intention, and get technology on your side. For anyone who’s ever thought, “I’ll just quickly check my phone,” and lost an hour (or more!), this book is for us.”
—Jana Haritatos, PhD, vice president of research at Hopelab Foundation

Jana Haritatos

It will take an army to conquer technology abuse. In her new book, Tchiki Davis proves herself as a worthy captain of the cause. Well researched, prescriptive, and practical, Outsmart Your Smartphone is not only good medicine, it’s a good read.”
—Blake Snow, online journalist, off-line advocate, and author of Log Off

Blake Snow

This book applies nuggets of wisdom and much of the self-help literature to a modern problem that affects almost all of us. If you want to own your smartphone instead of it owning you, reading Outsmart Your Smartphone is a great place to start!”
—Stephen M. Kosslyn, PhD, president and CEO of Foundry College

Stephen M. Kosslyn

Our smartphones are making us miserable, yet we increasingly need them to navigate our lives. How can we prioritize happiness, balance, and connection, despite this tech? That’s where happiness psychologist and researcher Tchiki Davis comes in. She shares seven game-changing steps we can take to lead happier lives with our smartphones. Through stories of her own and others’ experiences, along with insights from brain science and behavioral research, Tchiki empowers us to build a healthier relationship with our smartphone.”
—Gayle Allen, EdD, MBA, CEO of The Innovators’ Circle, and host of the Curious Minds podcast

Gayle Allen

Honest, cogent, practical, and deep, Outsmart Your Smartphone addresses an issue at the forefront of nearly every parent’s and every young adult’s worry list—that is, has my smartphone outsmarted me? Through a step-by-step, sensitive, evidence-based approach, Davis challenges the reader by suggesting do-able strategies to enhance real connections, foster positive life skills, and reduce undue reliance on those rectangular, ‘intelligent’ objects that dominate our lives. Highly recommended.”
—Stephen Hinshaw, PhD, professor in the department of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley; professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco; and author of Another Kind of Madness

Stephen Hinshaw

This actionable, easy-to-understand guide gives you the tools you need to get back in charge of a tool that’s taken over many of our lives: our mobile phones. Read it and you’ll have a clear path to reclaiming time that slips away, redirecting yourself toward what matters, and setting a good example for all of those people around you who are also drawn more and more into their mobile phones. Read it!”
—Ellen Petry Leanse, best-selling author of The Happiness Hack, and chief people officer at Lucidworks

Ellen Petry Leanse

Put down your smartphone, and pick up this book! Masterfully written, this guide by Tchiki Davis is truly a gem! This is the first book in the happiness domain I’ve read that actually provides real and practical skills you can implement into your life this instant. In addition to the outstanding research and empirically driven ideas this book offers, Davis has a voice that is witty, highly relatable, and deeply empathic. She is the perfect coach to help any of us overcome our smartphone addictions, and becoming a more well-balanced and happier individual. Thank you, Tchiki Davis!”
—Goali Saedi Bocci, PhD, adjunct professor at Pepperdine’s graduate school of education and psychology; and author of The Social Media Workbook for Teens and the Digital Detox Card Deck

Goali Saedi Bocci

Tchiki Davis tackles the complex relationship between our smartphones and being happy. With solid research, crisp advice, and personal stories, Outsmart Your Smartphone goes beyond the standard self-help patter to provide a thoughtful guide to living with your smartphone in a way that doesn’t make you unhappy or crazy.”
—Victor J. Strecher, PhD, MPH, professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health

Victor J. Strecher

Many of us have the sinking feeling that modern technologies are undermining our relationships, our focus, and, ultimately, our happiness. But Tchiki Davis shows us that it doesn’t have to be that way. With great candor and insight, she deftly walks us through sensible, research-based steps to reclaim our sense of purpose and equanimity in the digital age. Outsmart Your Smartphone will help you realize that you’re not alone in your struggles with technology—and gently guide you toward healthier relationships with your devices, with other people, and with yourself.”
—Jason Marsh, editor in chief and director of programs at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

Jason Marsh